linkin_park_junior_undergroundfandomcom-20200213-history
Minutes to Midnight
Minutes to Midnight is the third studio album released by American rock band Linkin Park. It was released worldwide by May 17, 2007 through Warner Bros. Records and Machine Shop Records. The album was produced by Mike Shinoda and Rick Rubin. Minutes to Midnight was the band's first album since the release of Meteora in 2003 and features a shift in the group's musical direction. For the band, the album marks a beginning of deviation from their signature nu-metal sound. Minutes to Midnight takes its title from the Doomsday Clock. Linkin Park started work on Minutes to Midnight in 2003, taking a break to tour in support of Meteora in 2004. In this time period, the band formed numerous side projects; Mike Shinoda formed his hip-hop side project Fort Minor, while Chester Bennington formed Dead by Sunrise, causing the album to be shelved temporarily. The band returned to work on the record afterward, taking on a different musical direction than the 2003 sessions while working with producer Rick Rubin. The album's completion was delayed several times for unknown reasons. Eventually, "What I've Done" was chosen as the album's lead single in April 2007, with the album seeing release in North America on May 15, 2007. The album debuted at No. 1 in the United States and in fifteen other countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada. In the United States, the album had the biggest first week sales of 2007 at the time, with 625,000 albums sold, going on to be certified double Platinum in the United States. The album worldwide has sold over 15,000,000 copies. It was also certified double Platinum in New Zealand, Italy, Ireland, and Australia and certified Platinum in Canada, France, Switzerland and in the United Kingdom. Despite its commercial success, Minutes to Midnight received mixed reviews from critics. Rolling Stone magazine named it the twenty-fifth best album of 2007. It was ranked No. 154 on Billboard's Hot 200 Albums of the Decade. Los Angeles musical group Vitamin String Quartet released a [[String Quartet Tribute to Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight|String Quartet Tribute to Minutes to Midnight]] under Vitamin Records. Background In an interview, lead singer Chester Bennington explained that the album is "a mix of punk, classic rock, and hip-hop standards" and that "Rick has brought more of a stripped down, classic-rock and hip-hop kind of feel." In another interview, Bennington stated: "This time around, Mike Shinoda is singing a lot more. It may seem like he's not on the record, but he's doing a lot of the harmonies. He also sings a couple of songs alone. We're presenting ourselves in a different way." Recording and Composition Guitarist Brad Delson experimented with an Ebow when the band was piecing together "The Little Things Give You Away". The band decided not to use the effect for the solo in that song and instead ended up creating "No More Sorrow" out of the effect. In "Given Up", he jingles the keys that are heard while several clap sounds are overlaid in the intro of the song (as mentioned in the lyric book: Brad added the sounds on the intro song: multiple tracks of claps - and keys jingling.). Shinoda and Delson teamed up with David Campbell to add string elements to six songs; "Leave Out All the Rest", "Shadow of the Day", "Hands Held High", "The Little Things Give You Away", as well as the two B-sides "No Roads Left" and "Blackbirds" (which was instead later used in the iPhone game 8-Bit Rebellion! as well as being included as a bonus track for A Thousand Suns in 2010), respectively. All scratching elements by Joe Hahn that existed in the previous two studio albums are largely absent because of the low mixing, except on the songs "What I've Done", "Wake", "The Little Things Give You Away", "Valentine's Day" and "In Pieces". Hahn contributes more with programming, electronics, and other elements to many of the songs. The church organ and military drumbeat on "Hands Held High" were originally to be used as the backdrop to melodic vocals, but Rubin recommended that the band try the opposite approach according to the album booklet. In live performances, Brad Delson plays keyboard on this song (the only song on which he does not play guitar). "Shadow of the Day" is one of two songs (the other being "No Roads Left") to have Bennington playing the guitar. During live performances, Shinoda is generally playing the keyboard for "Shadow of the Day", while Bennington plays rhythm guitar. Shinoda stated in an interview: "We were looking back at the things that we had done in the past... and I think we just figured that we had exhausted that sound. It was easy for us to replicate, it was easy for other bands to replicate, and we just needed to move on." (can be heard on the Sessions@AOL interview with Fort Minor). Shinoda performs his rapping vocals on only two tracks, "Bleed It Out" and "Hands Held High". This is a significant decrease compared to the amount of rapping on previous albums. The rap vocals on "Hands Held High" are much closer styled to Mike Shinoda's side project Fort Minor than his traditional Linkin Park verses, as he raps during most of the song. Despite a decrease of Mike Shinoda as rapper, he has three solo lead songs on the record: "Hands Held High", "In Between" and the bonus track "No Roads Left". He also sings lead in "Bleed It Out" while "What I've Done", "Shadow of the Day", "No More Sorrow" and "The Little Things Give You Away" features backing vocals from Shinoda at the end. Minutes to Midnight is also Linkin Park's first album to feature guitar solos, particularly in the tracks "In Pieces" and "The Little Things Give You Away". Also, unlike the previous two studio albums, Minutes to Midnight contains profanity and thus the first Linkin Park studio album to contain a Parental Advisory sticker (the first overall being their collaborative EP with Jay-Z, Collision Course) and politically charged lyrics. The songs that contain profanity are "Given Up", "Bleed It Out" and "Hands Held High". Release, Promotion, and Reception iTunes In a bonus video edition of the album (exclusively on iTunes), a Behind the Scenes video as well as the music video for "What I've Done" are included. The music video can be purchased separately while the Behind the Scenes video can only be obtained when purchasing the album. Commercial Minutes to Midnight was delayed several times before its release. First scheduled to be released in the summer of 2006, it was later postponed to the fall of 2006, then again to early 2007. The album's release date was finally set for May 14th, 2007. In Canada, the album was released on May 15th, 2007, and it was available worldwide by May 17th, 2007. There are non-Parental Advisory releases of both the regular album and the special edition album. The songs "Given Up", "Bleed It Out", and "Hands Held High" are edited. In Malaysia, the edited version for the album is available in digipak cover while the explicit edition available for the Tour Edition which features white slipcase cardboard cover and a standard jewel case. In the United States, the album had the biggest first week sales of 2007 at the time, with 625,000 albums sold. In Canada, the album sold over 50,000 copies in its first week and debuted at number one on the Canadian Albums Chart. Worldwide, the album shipped over 3,300,000 copies in its first four weeks of release. A year after the release of Minutes to Midnight, the band released ten different covers that were originally used as consideration for the final cover for the album prior to its release. The band made all ten of these covers available for fans to use as the album art on iTunes. Five singles were released from the album: "What I've Done", "Bleed It Out", "Shadow of the Day", "Given Up", and "Leave Out All the Rest". Although "Given Up" and "Leave Out All the Rest" had not been released as singles until early March 2008, "Given Up" had already charted on the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard Pop 100 charts at No. 99 and No. 78 respectively in 2007, and "Leave Out All the Rest" had already charted on Billboard's Pop 100 chart at No. 98 and Billboard's Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart at No. 17 in 2007. The songs "Hands Held High" and "No More Sorrow" also charted on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart at No. 23 and No. 24, respectively, in 2007. Critical Reception Minutes to Midnight received generally mixed reviews, based on an aggregate score of fifty-six out of one hundred from Metacritic, with critics showing approval, disapproval and indifference in almost equal measure. Rolling Stone gave Minutes to Midnight four out of five stars, stating that "most of Minutes is honed, metallic pop with a hip-hop stride and a wake-up kick", and it was placed at No. 25 in their list of the Top 50 Albums of 2007. IGN referred to it as "definitely a step in the right direction and a stepping stone for things to come". In his review, about.com's Bill Lamb considered the album "an impressive achievement", and went on to write that "Linkin Park handles their explorations of a direction forward with impressive grace here". Herald Sun writer Karen Tye gave it three and one-half out of four stars and praised the band's new sound, asking, "Who knew being a plain old rock band could suit Linkin Park so well?". Despite commending the band for their ambition, The Guardian's Caroline Sullivan gave the album three out of five stars and perceived "their decision to stay roughly within the shrieky boundaries of their genre" as a weakness, while writing that "the sound still pivots on the interplay of walloping guitar chords and self-flagellating lyrics". Among those with a more negative view of the album was Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic, who described the album's sound as "passé" and summed the band's effort up as "opting to create a muddled, colorless murk", giving it two and one-half out of five stars. NME magazine's Dan Silver gave it a rating of two out of ten, calling it the "sound of a band trying and failing to forge a new identity", and referring to the song "Hands Held High", a song about terrorist attacks and war, as "far and away the funniest thing you will hear all year". Other Editions Deluxe Edition The Deluxe Edition of Minutes to Midnight featured the "Making of Minutes to Midnight" documentary presented in a hardcover book form with the new Linkin Park logo embossed on the cover. The book shows the album art presented in the Standard Edition in a larger size and also features a few pieces of art not included in the Standard Edition. The documentary shows the process the band went through to make the album and divulges into such facts as the working title's of musical ideas that made the final album. Special Edition Bonus DVD The Special edition of Minutes to Midnight has all of the same features as the Deluxe Edition but in a larger sized hardcover book and with yet more art and photography from the Minutes to Midnight sessions. It includes The Making of Minutes to Midnight, the music video for "What I've Done", the Making of "What I've Done" video, and the Advanced Revolution PCM Studio of All 12 Tracks. Tour Edition The Tour Edition of Minutes to Midnight adds three tracks to the final track list. The three tracks are "No Roads Left", "What I've Done (Distorted Remix)" and "Given Up (Third Encore Session)". Some store locations at launch time, such as Target, has special offers while buying the Standard Edition of the CD. Target versions also had access to concert pre-sale tickets, while iTunes offered No Roads Left with the pre-order. Track Listing Tour Edition Bonus Tracks 2013 iTunes Deluxe Edition Bonus Tracks An iTunes Deluxe Edition for Minutes to Midnight was released in 2013 as a digital download through iTunes. Walmart Edition Bonus Tracks ''Minutes to Midnight - Live Around the World'' Minutes to Midnight - Live Around the World was released on June 12th, 2012. The track listing for Minutes to Midnight - Live Around the World is the same as the studio album, but each track is performed live from around the world at different locations in different years during the sessions of Minutes to Midnight. All songs written and composed by Linkin Park. Personnel Linkin Park *Chester Bennington – lead vocals, rhythm guitar on "Shadow of the Day" and "No Roads Left" *Mike Shinoda – co-lead vocals, rhythm guitar, piano, production, string arrangements on tracks 3, 5, 7, 12, and lead vocals on "No Roads Left" *Brad Delson – lead guitar, backing vocals, string arrangements on tracks 3, 5, 7, 12, and "No Roads Left" *Dave "Phoenix" Farrell – bass, backing vocals *Joe Hahn – turntables, sampling, programming, backing vocals *Rob Bourdon – drums, backing vocals Production *Rick Rubin – production *Dana Nielsen, Andrew Scheps and Ethan Mates – engineering *Phillip Broussard, Jr. – engineer assisting *Neal Avron – mixing *Nicolas Fournier and George Gumbs – mixing assisting *Dave Collins – mastering Guest Musicians on Tracks 3, 5, 7, 12, and "No Roads Left" *David Campbell – string arrangements and conduction *Charlie Bisharat – violin *Mario DeLeon – violin *Armen Garabedian – violin *Julian Hallmark – violin *Gerry Hilera – violin *Songa Lee-Kitto – violin *Natalie Leggett – violin *Josefina Vergara – violin *Sara Parkins – violin *Matt Funes – viola *Andrew Picken – viola *Larry Corbett – cello *Suzie Katayama – cello *Oscar Hidalgo – bass Trivia * The guitar solo on "Shadow of the Day" came from a piano piece written by Chester Bennington. Brad Delson liked the idea so he played it on guitar. * Several songs were conceived or recorded during the album's recording sessions but were released elsewhere. These tracks include: "No Roads Left", "QWERTY", "Across the Line", "Blackbirds", "Not Alone", "Debris (Minutes to Midnight Demo)", and "Pretend to Be (Demo 2008)". However, "QWERTY" was not really written and recorded for Minutes to Midnight, it was always going to be a B-side, the band had written that while in sound check on the Meteora tour. * Two remixes of Minutes to Midnight tracks were released, including "What I've Done (Distorted Remix)" (also known as an M. Shinoda remix on LP Underground X: Demos), and "Leave Out All the Rest (M. Shinoda Remix)". Category:Linkin Park Discography